Forever Probie
by TheLaikynVictoria
Summary: Alternate ending to S7 episode 'Masquerade'. What if the bomb had gone off? Please review!
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N- Hey! This is a fic I started a few weeks ago and only just now finished yesterday. It is an alternate ending to the season seven episode 'Masquerade'. _**

**_Please review!  
_**

* * *

_**Forever Probie**_

"Hey, McGee, come on, you're with me."

"Where are we goin'?"

"To find the bomb!"

McGee couldn't tell you what ran through his head at that moment. A lot of swear words, and 'Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God' is probably close, though.

"Don't make me say it, McGee."

"I'll be careful, Tony."

McGee jogged toward the entrance of the bus station, dodging people left and right.

People running _away_ from the bomb, while Gibbs and McGee ran toward it.

Once inside, he faintly heard the beeping of the device in his hands. He choked out a call to Gibbs, and advanced toward a luggage rack.

He faintly heard Tony talking over the two-way radio. He faintly heard Gibbs reply.

He faintly heard the sirens outside,

He attempted to crack a joke, trying to seem calm when inside he was terrified out of his mind.

And when he saw the bomb, he just felt faint. The ticking backward from 00:40 didn't help much, either.

"Lead lined, that's why it was blocking our sensor." McGee's brain went to work, calculating and measuring and mapping out all the possibilities.

McGee was terrified, scared out of his mind, and wondering if he'd ever see his baby sister again.

But when Gibbs told him to simply 'leave', he was...Curious, to put it mildly. "Boss, the threat of contamination is minimal."

"Go! It's an order! Now...Leave." McGee's soft, green eyes stared into Gibbs' ice blue ones, not even hesitating before saying,

"it's an order I'm disobeying."

In the back of his mind, Gibbs thought proudly of his junior agent. Not many would do something as commendable as what McGee was doing now. But at the same time, he wanted to give him a good hard head-slap.

But, there wasn't much time for debate.

Literally. The timer was still ticking backward, and when they looked back down, they saw it read 00:07.

"Okay, if it's a tamper resistant circuit, I'd say cut the bla-"

McGee had no time to finish his sentence as Gibbs cut the red wire. Suddenly, the device made nine short beeps, followed by one long one. Gibbs and McGee couldn't even exchange a single glance, before...

_Boom._

* * *

Tony and Ziva waited impatiently outside, both extremely worried. All that Tony could see was McGee's scared expression as he turned to walk into the building. Of course, Tony was worried for both Gibbs and McGee, but it was easy not to worry too much about the ex-Marine sniper-turned-NCIS agent. McGee was his Probie. His best friend. His brother. So when an rumble suddenly rippled under them, followed by a blast of heat and an obvious explosion, Tony's heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.

"No!"

Without a moment's thought, Tony and Ziva took off on a sprint toward the bus station. The exterior wall was gone, crumbling beneath the flames that danced inside the building. Support beams were, thankfully, looking steady enough, so the fear of the entire building collapsing was momentarily at bay.

"Gibbs!"  
"McGee!"  
Tony and Ziva knew they couldn't exactly enter a building that had just blow up. They got as close as they could without actually entering the building. They pressed the top of their shirts to their mouths and noses, attempting to mask the smoke that would inevitably fill their lungs.

"McGee! Tim! Can you hear me!" Tony yelled, walking back and forth, trying to see a hint of his Probie. "Can you hear me?"

* * *

When he came to, McGee was all but dead.

He hurt all over. (_'You were just less than one foot away from a bomb as it exploded.')_

It felt like his skin was on fire. (_'Maybe it is?'_)

He felt like he couldn't breathe. (_'Might have something to do with the black smoke filling your lungs..'_)

He couldn't see a thing except high-rising, angry, orange and red flames. (_'That would be fire, Tim.') _

"Why the heck is Gibbs in my head?" McGee wondered aloud as he stumbled to his feet. "Wait, when is Gibbs not in my head?" He mumbled as he looked around blindly.

"Gibbs!" He coughed. "Gibbs, are you here?" His yells sent him into a coughing fit, making him think of putting something over his mouth.

He pulled his shirt collar up, coughing again. Okay, he knew that the entrance was _this_ direction.  
Or this one.

The central blast was right _here_.  
Or over there.

McGee shook his head.

Light. Just. Find. Light.

No. Gibbs.

Find Gibbs.

Then light.

"Gibbs!" He yelled again, straining to hear over the sound of the deafening fire. "Gibbs, come on, Boss!" Then, he heard coughing behind him. He turned quickly, and then just as quickly realized that it was a bad idea. He lost his footing and fell forward to his knees.

"This is probably better, anyways." McGee mumbled. He fell forward on to his hands and started crawling, the smoke still billowing. "Boss, come on, make some noise or something." McGee called out, feeling his hands scraping up against the concrete and glass on the ground. "Boss?"

"Tim!" The raspy cough floated toward McGee, who started crawling faster toward the wavering voice. "Over here, McGee."  
"I'm comin', Boss, hold on." McGee yelled. As he crawled, he evaluated his own injuries. Excluding the burns that surely covered most of his body, his right wrist was throbbing and his face literally felt like it was melting. _'Maybe it is.'_

He didn't dare touch his face to find out, knowing if he did it would send him into excruciating pain. He also undoubtedly knew he had a gash in his head, as he felt the thick blood running down his neck. Suddenly, as he was still crawling, he bumped into a large figure.

"Boss?"

"Yeah, it's me McGee." McGee would have breathed a sigh of relief if he could have actually breathed at the moment.

"Boss, how bad are you hurt?" McGee wheezed.

"I don't think I'm hit too bad." Gibbs choked out. "My leg hurts the most. I can't walk, so I need your help, McGee."

"Yeah, on it Boss." McGee wrapped his arms under Gibbs' and pulled, producing a loud moan from the elder man. "Sorry, Boss."

"Don't apologize, McGee." Gibbs grunted. "Just go that way." He pointed towards where the entrance use to be.  
Or so McGee assumed.

After dodging flames and falling concrete, McGee dragged Gibbs outside. After pulling him over large piles of rubble, and around flames, coughing the entire way, McGee made. It. Out. Side.

"Good job, McGee." Gibbs breathed, feeling completely and totally spent even though he'd done nothing but get dragged along. Knowing that he and Gibbs were out of immediate danger, McGee collapsed, completely unconscious.

* * *

"Ziva!" Tony pointed to the two figures struggling to get out of the wreckage. "Is that...Oh my God!"

Tony and Ziva raced toward Gibbs and McGee just as McGee collapsed. Tony's reflexively caught him and eased him to the ground.

"Help me get them further away." Tony coughed as more smoke billowed toward them. "Come on, Ziva!" He looked up to see her staring up at the building.

"Tony..." Her eyes widened. "Come, quickly."

Not giving Tony time to see what she'd seen, she grabbed Gibbs under the arms as McGee had done and started pulling him away and Tony did the same with McGee.

"Ziva, what did you see?" Tony grunted as they finally got the two injured men into the street.  
"Nothing, Tony." Ziva mumbled. Tony eyed her a moment before turning around,  
"Hey! We need some help over here!"

* * *

_The Next Day_

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

Gibbs listened to the steady tone. The steady tone of his agent's heartbeat.

The only outward indication of life.

The beeps.

The God-forsaken beeps.

Gibbs could have head-slapped himself.

McGee just laid there, unconscious. His right hand was propped up on a few pillows, his broken wrist wrapped in bandages. His head was partially shaved from where they had went in his head to remove the shrapnel. But his face...

Gibbs couldn't hardly stand to look at it, but he couldn't stand to look away. When the bomb exploded, Gibbs had reacted a bit quicker, turning his face directly away from the bomb. McGee, however, was not as lucky.

The doctors were amazed that he had lived in the first place, let alone was conscious and coherent enough to drag Gibbs to safety.

Some of the best surgeons on the east coast had worked on McGee. They reconstructed most of his face, fixing the major damage and only some of the more superficial abnormalities. The doctors said that he would probably have no feeling in the left side of his face at first, the side which was most affected. 'They wounds will heal.' They said.

'He will eventually look almost back to normal.'

Eventually?

_Almost?_

Gibbs sighed and rubbed his knee above his cast, the pain radiating through his entire leg.

Sarah, who was studying abroad in London, was on a plane to DC. Vivienne and Craig McGee, who were still living in Alameda, were also on their way.

Tony and Ziva were finishing closing out the case at NCIS. Walter Kane had been the culprit, Gibbs had deduced after the dentist had 'killed himself'. Vance and Tony brought Kane down, and the other bomb threats were avoided. All was well...  
In that aspect anyway.

When McGee started to stir, Gibbs sat up, waiting.  
"Muh...Face?"

"Yeah, Tim, the doctors said you might not feel it at first." Gibbs told him.

"It...Hurts, though."

"I know."

"You...Okay?"

"I got a busted leg, but I'm fine. Thanks to you."

"Will I...Okay?"

Gibbs sighed, "over time, you'll be fine."

"Over time?" Gibbs watched as McGee attempted to sit up, and after realizing he obviously couldn't, he stopped moving and shut his eyes.

"A piece of shrapnel was embedded in your skull. It didn't touch your brain, and they fixed that pretty easily." Gibbs started. "Your right wrist is broken. It's a clean break, and they set it, and it should heal over the next couple of months. We both had smoke inhalation, obviously, but that was treated immediately and we should have minimal scarring."

"And?" McGee asked. "My face?"

"You were basically looking at the bomb, Tim." Gibbs said softly. "You shut your eyes, luckily, but..Beyond that, there's not much that wasn't injured."

"My...Entire face?"

"You were in surgery for six hours." Gibbs' indirect answer was enough for McGee as he sighed.  
"I look...Deformed, don't I?"

"No, not...Really." Gibbs' lie was blatantly obvious and McGee had to grin.

"I..Tired. Can I...Sleep, now?"

"Yeah, Tim, you sleep." Gibbs replied, but Tim had already dozed off by the time he finished his sentence. "I'll be here when you wake up."

* * *

"Zee?"

"Hm?"

"What did you see..Then?"

"What do you mean, Tony?"

Tony sighed,  
"when we were getting McGee and Gibbs away from the building. You were pale as a ghost, which is saying something for an Israeli."

"I saw the support beams, Tony." Ziva told him. "They were about to crumble."

"Hm." Tony pondered. "You sure?"

"Positive."

After a few minutes of silence, Ziva spoke up.

"What time is it, Tony?" She asked.

"Almost 19:00, why?" He replied, looking up at her.

"Visiting hours are over in two hours."

Without hesitation,  
"let's go."

* * *

Tony, Ziva and Gibbs all sat around McGee's bedside, dozing. Ziva lay on the couch, a blanket spread over her. She was asleep. Tony sat in the straight backed chair, one knee drawn up and his head leaned back. He was asleep.

Gibbs sat in the shorter, curve backed chair, his leg propped up on the side of McGee's bed. His chin rested on his chest and a coffee cup was gripped tightly in his hand. He was asleep.

Ducky, Jimmy and Vance had been by earlier that evening but McGee had been asleep, so they conversed with the other three for a while before leaving, promising they'd be back tomorrow. Now, McGee had woken up and was looking at his team.

_His_ _team_.

Gibbs, Ziva and Tony.

He grinned (or as much as he could) at them. He admits, in the past he questioned his place on this team many times, especially in the early days. He was always the Probie, the junior agent. (Save for during Gibbs' 'unpaid leave')

He was and always would be the least important. Or at least that's what he had gotten use to thinking about himself. But now, his team was sitting around his bedside, keeping a constant vigil on him.

He realized, in this moment, that even if he forever was the 'Probie', he couldn't ask for a better team. For a better family.

"McGee, are you alright?"

He realized that Ziva had woken up, and he attempted to grin at her. "Yeah, I'm fine." He said softly. "Why?"

"Because you are crying." She said as she ever so gently wiped the tears away.

"I am?" McGee asked, somewhat shocked. Why had he not realized he was crying? Oh right.

A bomb blew up in his face.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He continued. "Just thinking."

"About what?" She asked, letting her hand rest on his cheek a moment before letting them rest in her lap.

"You guys." He replied. "How lucky I am."

"You are lucky. The doctor say you should have died." She told him. "And if you had, I might of had to kill you a second time." She grinned teasingly at him.

"Thanks, Ziva." He whispered. McGee could feel the darkness welcoming him again, so he decided to settle back and let himself fall asleep again.

"You go ahead, McGee." Ziva patted his hand. "We will be here when you wake up again."

'_Yeah,' _McGee thought as he slipped further into unconsciousness. _'I know you will.'_


	2. This Is Not A Chapter

This is not a chapter!

Just wanted to clarify on something all at once, what Ziva saw was supposed to be left mysterious and up for interpretation. This is a oneshot and I don't intend on continuing it.

Ziva could _really_ seen the support beams crumbling, or she could have seen 'death's shadow' lingering over them.

I don't know.

That's why it's up for interpretation and _you _can decide what she saw. =]

Thanks!

-SpecialAgentMcTim-SpenceReid


End file.
